1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a liquid droplet ejecting apparatus such as an ink jet printer.
2. Related Art
In the related art, an ink jet printer which forms characters or an image by ejecting ink as an example of liquid droplets onto a medium such as a T-shirt has been known as an example of a liquid droplet ejecting apparatus.
As such a printer, there is a printer which includes a medium support unit which supports a medium, a liquid droplet ejecting unit which ejects ink (liquid droplets) onto a medium, a reflection type detecting unit which radiates light toward the medium support unit, and receives reflected light of the light, and a carriage which performs a reciprocating movement in a width direction in a state of supporting the liquid droplet ejecting unit and the detecting unit (for example, JP-A-2007-223074).
In addition, in such a printer, whether or not a medium is supported on the medium support unit is determined based on a detection result of the detecting unit when the medium support unit and the detecting unit are caused to perform a relative movement. In addition, when it is determined that a medium is not supported on the medium support unit, a warning about the significance thereof is performed, and printing is not executed.
Meanwhile, according to a type of the detecting unit or a type of a medium which is supported on the medium support unit in the above described printer, there is a case in which it is determined that a medium is not supported on the medium support unit, even when the medium is supported on the medium support unit.
For example, when whether or not a medium is supported on the medium support unit is determined based on the difference in light intensity of reflected light (difference in intensity of received light) between a case in which the medium support unit is set to a detecting target and a case in which a medium which is supported on the medium support unit is set to a detecting target, there is a concern that the following problem may occur.
That is, when a color of the medium support unit (reflectivity) and a color of a medium (reflectivity) are approximately the same, there is a case in which the difference in light intensity of reflected light rarely occurs, and it is determined that a medium is not supported on the medium support unit, even when the medium is supported on the medium support unit. That is, there is a problem in that throughput of a printing apparatus decreases, since printing is not executed even without a problem in executing printing.